


truck in the suburbs (a theoretical situation)

by flirtygaybrit



Category: Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, First Time, Frottage, M/M, Phone Sex, Pining, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 04:46:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18887458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flirtygaybrit/pseuds/flirtygaybrit
Summary: It’s Tom’s retirement party. It’s time to let go.





	truck in the suburbs (a theoretical situation)

It’s the night of Tom’s retirement. 

There’s a party at the house—Molly’s, not Tom’s, because god knows his backyard isn’t big enough to spit in, let alone hold a few guests, and it’s the kind of event that even Tom’s family thinks is worth celebrating. The living room and kitchen and even the garage are fully decked-out, plastered with cheesy neon streamers and stuffed with people chowing down on finger foods and alcoholic beverages (except the kids, obviously, who deserve apple juice or water or whatever they can get their sticky fingers on).

It’s a real party, not just one of those Saturday night hangouts, and Tom is surrounded by people who are happy, and in some cases, relieved to see him finally take his pension and retire from the forces. _Congratulations Tom_ , the living room banner says. _So Long, Cap_ says the one in the garage. The boys are down there now, leaving crumpled cans of beer on the cement and regaling Molly’s family with tales of Captain Davis’s Best Moments, and Tom is upstairs in the bathroom, half-hard, crushing Santiago against the back of the door like he could crawl inside him if only they were pressed together firmly enough.

And Santiago would let him. Christ, he’d let him, right here against the door with all of Tom’s family laughing and celebrating downstairs, and he’d ruin Tom’s life forever.

“If we do any more than this tonight, we can’t take it back,” Santiago whispers against Tom’s mouth. There’s a lot more that he needs to say, but Tom’s tongue is kind of in his mouth and it’s been a long time since he’s felt this good, so he leaves it at that.

“Be worth it,” Tom mumbles back. His hand is still flattened against Santiago’s stomach, fingers bleeding warmth against his bare skin. He’s not interested in talking either, apparently, but as much as Santiago wants to feel more of Tom’s tongue and hands on any part of his body, he knows he’s gotta draw the line here.

He reaches up and pushes his fingers through Tom’s hair, then tugs his head back gently until Tom is forced to break the kiss.

“Would it?” he asks, and he can’t decide suddenly whether to take his eyes off of Tom’s or whether to let his gaze be drawn to the deliberate swipe of Tom’s tongue over his lower lip. “You’ve got a really good thing going here, man. You know you’re not gonna ruin it for a—a drunk handy in the bathroom. Come on.”

“I am perfectly sober,” Tom retorts, then grins that stupid sideways grin of his because they both know it’s blatantly untrue. “And I have a good thing here, too, right? What’s wrong with this?”

“You know what’s wrong with this,” Santiago says. He wraps his fingers gently around Tom’s wrist and gently pulls it up until it’s level with his chest. “Just because you’re out doesn’t mean you have to act like this”—he shakes Tom’s hand gently back and forth between them, trying his best to get his message across without words because he’s not sure he could bear to say it out loud—“is over forever. I’m still gonna be here for you, okay?”

Tom cocks his head, his expression turning from one of drunken amusement to slight indignation. “This isn’t about that.”

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s—we’ve, we’ve done this, man. We’ve come back from this before, we haven’t…” He seems to struggle to articulate his feelings, then closes his fingers around Santiago’s, now visibly frustrated. “I mean, what’s the difference now?”

Santiago gazes up at him and grimaces. “The difference is that you’re not gonna be out there anymore. You’re gonna be here with your family. Not that we aren’t still family,” he says quickly, “but you’ve got… you have Molly. You have Tess. You have what we don’t and you can’t let anything that happened out there affect what’s happening here.”

It’s a better speech than he’d thought himself capable of, and it looks like it’s working. Tom’s hand slips lower and then away, and he straightens up with a deep, sober inhale before ambling to the bathroom sink, where he begins to run water, presumably to splash on his face, but simply stands hunched over the sink with his eyes closed as if in prayer.

“This was a bad idea.”

“It was a really shitty idea,” Santiago agrees.

Tom sighs, turns off the tap, and sits on the toilet instead with his face in his hands. “Suppose they’re probably wondering where I went.”

He still looks a little rumpled, but Santiago figures all he really needs is a few minutes to talk his dick back down before he can safely be released back into the rest of the house. A wave of relief sweeps over Santiago at the thought. They’ve come back from it again. 

“It is your party. If anyone asks, you were in here blowing chunks with me. Three beer was three too many,” Santiago says sombrely. “And if you need some time, I’ll just make a distraction." It’s enough to pull Tom’s face out of his hands, and when he catches Santiago’s eye his expression melts into something softer.

“I appreciate it,” he says quietly.

“I know,” Santiago replies.

—

Over the course of the evening, the party begins to slowly dwindle. Streamers are pulled from the ceiling and balled up and tossed around, the finger foods disappear, and the bottles and cans and empty party cups pile up on most horizontal surfaces. The party was a success, or at least as much of a success as retirement celebrations can be, and after Will and Benny give Tom a couple of emotional bear hugs and totter off to the taxi waiting for them at the end of the driveway, Santiago is the last one left.

He’s mostly sober now, or at least has feigned it so well that Molly had felt comfortable enough to leave his keys on the counter in the kitchen before putting Tess to bed, and he finds himself picking up the empty cans on the floor in the garage when Tom finally returns from seeing the boys off.

“You don’t need to do that, you know.”

Santiago glances up as Tom shuts the garage’s side door behind him. “I know, but Molly doesn’t need to deal with this in the morning. She’s got enough to take care of with you home. Least I can do is clean up out here.”

Tom sighs. “Thank you,” he says sincerely.

“No trouble.” Santiago picks up another can and drops it in the bag. Tom continues to stand in front of the door, his hands in his pockets and his brow furrowed faintly in thought. After a moment, Santiago stands upright and puts his hands on his hips.

“I know that look,” he says. “Just say it.”

Tom’s expression doesn’t change. His gaze is fixed on Santiago, but Santiago can’t help feeling that Tom isn’t even looking at him. “Upstairs. In the bathroom. If I’d kept pushing...”

“You weren’t pushing,” Santiago says quietly.

Tom holds up a hand, as if to signal him to stop. Santiago’s followed that signal and many more in the years he’s known Tom, and it’s with mild curiosity that Santiago obeys him again, waiting for him to continue. “Yeah, I know, just… hear me out. You know I wanted to do that, right?”

Santiago blinks at him. “You know you didn’t force me.”

“No! No, that isn’t—that’s not—what I mean is, I…” Tom scuffs the toe of one boot against the ground, shoulders hunching sheepishly. “I, uh... I wanted to keep going. I would’ve. You know?”

Santiago gazes at him, and suddenly it seems absurd for him to be surrounded by wilting streamers and empty beer cans. “I know.” Maybe in any other situation, it would have been okay for him to. Maybe if Tom had never been married, if Santiago had no obligation to travel around the world with sniper teams and extraction plans, this would have worked out. Maybe if it didn’t feel like goodbye, he would have even agreed to it.

Tom takes a slow, steadying breath. “I’m trying to say I w—”

“Hey, you—don’t go any further. You _know_ you can’t say anything like that,” Santiago says, lowering his voice and raising a warning finger. “You know I can’t let that happen. Much as I want to.”

“If I just _watched_ ,” Tom blurts out suddenly, and that takes Santiago by surprise. “If we—if you wanted, if you let me, I could... I can just talk to you. I won’t even put my hands on you. We can just talk.” He lowers himself slowly into one of the chairs and rests both hands on top of his thighs, and he gives Santiago that look, the same look he’s had to weather that look in jungles and back alleys of dusty cities and sweaty stakeouts in the desert.

And now he’s asking Santiago again. 

And Santiago’s going to have to say no.

“Tommy, your wife is in there.”

“Then we’ll turn the lights off and I’ll just listen,” Tom insists in a whisper. There is a naked hunger in his eyes that Santiago has never seen before, not so plainly as this. He’s fucked. Honest to god fucked. “Let me have this. I’m retired now, this is... this is all I want. I won’t ask for anything more after tonight.”

He pushes himself to his feet and reaches up and turns off the light, and Santiago stares at the dark space where Tom is standing in front of the door, his shoulders outlined in the faint light shining in from the street. 

Santiago swallows. “Listen, man, I... I can’t. You know this is a bad idea. You’re not sober, I’m not... I’m barely sober too. And you know what? I gotta get home. I’m leaving for São Paulo tomorrow. And you’re gonna wake up here, safe in your bed, and you’re gonna sit back and enjoy retirement without the rest of us around to bother you.”

“I need this,” Tom whispers.

Santiago drops his bag of cans. They clatter against the ground, and Santiago presses both palms against his eyes until colours in the shape of Tom’s hands and mouth bloom on the inside of his eyelids.

“If you had asked me to do this even a month ago, I would have said yes,” he says quietly. “But you can’t ask me to do this now, Tom. I need you to not ask me this.”

It’s hard to move with the lights out, and more than once Santiago finds himself stumbling blindly into furniture and kicking empty bottles about, but he still manages to find Tom in the dark. He wraps his arms around him and squeezes tight, and Tom hugs him so fiercely that he thinks his ribcage might collapse.

“Take care of yourself,” he says.

It lasts for only a moment, and then Santiago claps Tom’s back and lets go, feeling his way blindly toward the door without another word. He can’t stop to look back, not even in the dark. Neither of them can afford it at this point in their lives, and tonight isn’t about him. Their relationship isn’t about him.

It’s Tom’s retirement party. It’s time to let go. 

Santiago makes it to his truck and fumbles with his keys in the light from the streetlamp, and maybe not-so-accidentally slams the door behind him when he climbs in. Before he can turn the engine, his phone vibrates in his pocket, and Santiago stares up at the roof of the truck for a few seconds while it continues to buzz.

All he has to do is leave. He pulls out his phone instead and taps the green button.

“Yeah,” he says into the receiver.

“If you leave that fucking driveway, Santiago, so help me god I will never fucking forgive you,” Tom hisses in his ear. “Not as long as I fucking live. That’s a promise.”

Santiago swallows and glances at the house. It’s quiet, still in the light from the street lamps. There’s no sign of Tom in the garage window, or in any of the windows. The house could almost be empty. He could leave without looking back.

“This isn’t you, brother.”

Tom breathes heavily on the other end of the line. “I don’t know who I am without you.”

Santiago squeezes his eyes shut and slumps in his seat, one hand still on the steering wheel. No, no, no. Not tonight. Not this. 

“Jesus, Redfly. What do you want me to do? My hands are tied here. You know I...” Santiago sputters for a moment, but the words seem to slip away every time he reaches for them. Leave it to Tom to pass the call off to him at the worst possible time. What the hell is he supposed to do now? 

“Okay. Okay, say I—I do this. What would you… what would it be?”

“I just want to hear you.”

The line goes quiet for a long moment. He can still hear Tom breathing. It could be the last thing he ever heard from Tom if he hung up now.

“Well... let’s talk,” Santiago says quietly. It’s a terrible non-decision, but it’s the best he’s got. “Yeah. We’ll just talk for a minute. What do you wanna talk about?”

“In the bathroom.”

“In the... the bathroom upstairs? Like earlier?”

“I wanted to suck you off,” Tom says.

It is not the first time that Santiago has imagined how it would feel, what it would look like. Tom, with only Santiago for experience, would have dropped to his knees without hesitation, and he would have mouthed his way over Santiago’s stomach and grinned against his skin when it was time to unbuckle his belt, and he would have pulled his cock out and—

“Jesus,” Santiago says, pushing himself back against the headrest. His dick is starting to ache despite the relative—no, objective, definitely objective—unsexiness of this entire fucking situation, and he swallows again and closes his eyes against the darkness. “Okay. Sure. You could do that.”

“I’d take your cock out and put it in my mouth,” Tom says quietly. “You were hard. I could feel it.”

“So were you,” Santiago says. 

A new noise breaks the silence—not quite loud enough to make out, but something that makes Santiago picture a belt buckle being wrestled with, and the sound of a zipper being drawn. It’s none of his business what is happening in that garage, and yet Santiago’s mouth goes dry as he imagines Tom doing just that, shoving a hand down his pants and pulling out his dick. Bathroom, he thinks. Unsexy bathroom. Tile floor. Leaky tap. Truck in the suburbs. Do not get hard.

“Alright, so you’d… you’d suck my dick.”

“Yeah.” 

It’s a struggle not to picture what Tom must be doing right now; he could be leaning against the other side of the garage door for all Santiago knows, phone pressed between his ear and shoulder, eyes shut tight against the dark, a hand around his cock. But he wouldn’t go that far, would he? Not with his family upstairs, not with Santiago sitting in the driveway, listening to him jerk off, breaking every single goddamn rule they’ve set for themselves in the past decade.

“Hey,” Santiago says softly. “Hey. Red. Talk to me.”

“ _You_ talk to _me._ ”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me you’d come in my mouth,” Tom rasps, and oh no, oh, Jesus, they’re doing this.

“Tom…”

“Tell me you’d fuck my throat,” Tom continues breathlessly. “I know you like it deep like that. You like something wet around your cock. You could hold my hair, show me how you like it.”

Santiago presses the heel of his palm against his groin. It does nothing to lessen the sharp ache that Tom’s voice is filling him with, and as Tom moans quietly on the other end of the phone Santiago squeezes himself briefly and thinks about what it would be like to put the truck in gear and wrap himself around the nearest pole.

“Fuck, man.”

“I’d make you come so hard,” Tom whispers. Santiago can just barely make out a rapid, muffled noise in the background. “Make you blow your load in my mouth, on my face.”

Santiago opens his eyes and focuses on the garage door. “You really get off on that shit? Being used like that?”

“Would you get off on using me?” Tom counters, and Santiago swallows hard and squeezes himself until it hurts.

“No. No, I don’t wanna use you. I wanna do the _opposite_ of use you in this _theoretical situation_ , Tom. I wanna make you feel good, okay? That’s what I’d want.”

Tom makes a brief, high-pitched whine, and Santiago can’t help imagining him now: the image of Tom bracing himself against the garage door with the phone against his ear and his pants shoved down around his thighs and his cock on his hand and his head thrown back is a colourful one, and a pitiful one, and one that Santiago knows is going to haunt him forever if he leaves here tonight. He would rather die a thousand deaths than go to São Paulo without telling Tom that he’s in love with him.

“Tom.” He shifts his phone to his other ear and focuses on the exterior of the house. “Tommy, come out here, you hear me? Come out of the house, goddamnit.”

The line goes dead immediately. Santiago squints at his phone, then at the garage door, which remains suspiciously unmoving—but it’s the side door that opens after a brief pause, and Tom steps out and strides toward him with all the decisiveness of a man determined to finally meet his fate head-on.

“Get in,” Santiago says through the windshield. He leans over the seat and opens the passenger door, tossing his phone onto the dashboard as Tom climbs up and into his truck. “You’re a goddamn filthy sonofabitch, Redfly, you got that? You fucking copy?”

Tom wordlessly pulls the door shut and leans over and kisses him, and all Santiago can do is fist his hand in Tom’s hair and moan into his mouth.

It’s nearly impossible to maneuver one grown man in a truck this size, let alone two, but somehow they manage to get it done. Santiago is pretty sure he’s actively blacking out the details of the scene, because one second he’s upright, pressed against the cool driver’s side window, and the next he’s on his back, thighs spread wide to accommodate Tom’s massive fucking body. He’s hard again, they both are, and it’s incredibly difficult to find a position that doesn’t threaten to cramp his calf or leave footprints on the passenger window, but it’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make.

He’s always been willing to do anything— _mostly_ anything—for Tom, and this… well, it’s going to be worth it. 

It has to be.

Breaking the rules is almost precisely what Santiago always imagined being crushed by an elephant would feel like. Tom ruts against him like an animal, more eager than he’s ever been, his breath hot against Santiago’s mouth. He tastes like beer and pigs in a blanket, and he’s so desperate he’s making sounds that Santiago thinks only a dog should be able to hear; when Santiago slides his hand beneath the back of Tom’s shirt, Tom sinks his teeth into Santiago’s lip and arches his back and it’s—

yeah. Wow. It’s doing something for him.

Tom palms over his chest with a broad hand. “You know I can’t fuck you—”

“—no, you can’t—”

“—and you can’t fuck me—”

“—not without a condom, I can’t—”

“I have a condom,” Tom says, and Santiago gapes at him, breathless and offended and horny and completely amazed all at once.

“You’re disgusting, holy shit,” Santiago says breathlessly. “You really brought a condom?”

“Listen, I’m not even gonna fuckin’ last that long, man,” Tom whines, and it’s just so pathetic that Santiago nods and reaches down and begins to to unbuckle his belt. 

Tom does the same. He hadn’t even bothered refastening his, apparently, so he’s faster to pull out his cock than Santiago is, but if this is some sort of contest, then the sight of Tom’s dick is a prize like no other. Without hesitation, Santiago reaches down between them and wraps his hand around Tom’s dick, and Jesus Christ, he thought dicks like these were only in porn videos and snuff films. Tom’s cock fills his hand, a little sticky with precome, and the first time Tom thrusts against him he’s pretty sure he’s going to need both hands to pull this off, but he’s done letting Tom take the lead. He pulls Tom into a firm kiss with one hand and uses the other to keep Tom’s dick pressed against his own, and the second time Tom thrusts against him he gasps and thrusts back and realizes what a terrible and fantastic idea this was.

And that’s all he gets to do.

It takes only a handful of thrusts to get Tom off, a few sticky final strokes and a little bit of pressure and Tom shudders and whines into his mouth and covers Santiago’s hand and cock in a hot, slick mess. It’s really fucking hot, figuratively and maybe literally speaking, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it; as Santiago is just starting to enjoy the way Tom’s cock slides wetly through his hand, Tom lifts himself up, shuffles back on the seat, and folds himself in half to slobber directly on Santiago’s dick, making desperate, half-formed noises as he licks at the mess and licks at the head of Santiago’s cock and—

and it’s the first time Santiago has ever orgasmed in this fucking truck, and he does it with one hand reaching for Tom’s head and one hand gripping the steering wheel and one of his legs just up in the fucking air, and it’s the best orgasm he’s ever had in his life.

“Fuck,” Santiago pants, fingers still fisted in Tom’s hair. “Did I fucking come on the seat?”

Tom’s still sort of licking at his cock, and he pauses for a second to check while Santiago twitches and tries to get more of Tom’s mouth on him. “Eh, don’t think so.”

Santiago lets his head fall back against the door. It hurts a little. He’s too out of it to care. “Good. Did you?”

“Nope,” Tom says. He leans sideways, glancing around at the interior of the truck while Santiago gazes up at him and marvels at the redness in his cheeks and the unconscious way he wipes at his mouth. “Ah, shit. Yeah. A little.”

Santiago snorts. It’s not even funny, but Tom takes it as permission to chuckle and lean down and rest his forehead against Santiago’s chest.

“Gross,” Santiago says. “Thanks for that.”

“My pleasure.”

Santiago actually laughs this time. He drags his fingers through Tom’s hair, forward and back, scratching gently at his scalp while he listens to Tom slowly regain his breath. “You’re a real asshole.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Look at this fuckin’ mess, man.” Santiago curls his fingers around the back of Tom’s neck and exhales, still a little shaky. “Fuck.”

Tom glances up, lifting his brows in a surprisingly vulnerable expression. He’s a handsome man. It’s hard not to want to touch him, comfort him. It’s hard not to want everything about him. “I can live with you hating me for fucking up the truck. You can go to São Paulo. Never think of me again.”

“Nah.” Santiago pushes his fingers through Tom’s hair again, then rests his palm against Tom’s cheek. “You know that’s not gonna happen. Maybe you can live with this, but I can’t live with letting you down.” 

Tom smiles gently and it makes Santiago’s heart ache.

“Don’t disappear on me completely, okay?” Tom pushes himself up and winces. A truck like this was’t designed for a horizontal man of his size. Santiago isn’t sure how they’re going to get out of this. He’s actually not sure he even wants to. “When you go, I mean. Fuck off to wherever you boys go to. Keep ‘em safe, give my replacement hell. Just make sure you come back some day.”

Santiago gazes up at him at him. He looks at Tom, looks at the wet stain on his shirt, looks at his cock hanging out of his pants, his hair mussed and sweaty, so open and honest and adoring, and he can’t help but reach up and touch his cheek.

Tom has asked more than enough of him tonight. Santiago’s going to leave for São Paulo tomorrow, and Tom’s going to be with his family at last, and they’re both going to remember this night for the rest of their lives.

And if this _is_ goodbye—if all he ever gets is a quick and dirty handjob and the satisfaction of finally being able to hold Tom’s face in his hands in his fucking truck in the middle of the suburbs, so close to the illusion of there _being_ a someday—Santiago’s going to take another goddamn minute to enjoy it.

“I’ll come back for you,” he promises, thumbing gently over Tom’s cheek. “You have my word.”

**Author's Note:**

> AND THEN THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER the end


End file.
